The present invention relates generally to voice frame network gatekeepers and intelligent peripherals such as interactive voice response units (IVRs), and more particularly it concerns method and apparatus for interfacing gatekeepers to intelligent peripherals via the ITU H.323 and H.450 standards.
Previously, intelligent peripherals have been connected to gatekeepers within the Internet using proprietary interfaces. One such proprietary interface is (Bellcore) GR-1129-CORE, which can be used to connect an intelligent peripheral such as an IVR into an advanced intelligent network (AIN). The AIN includes a switch service point (SSP) with call-processing software and voice channel control and a service control point (SCP) with data-based (e.g. 800 or LNP) information required by the SSP to route a call. The intelligent peripheral is a special resource that provides additional functionality, e.g. IVR, to the SSP that may be required by the SCP. When the SSP receives a GR-1129-CORE message from the SCP containing an operation value, e.g. a ‘0’ (play announcement), ‘1’ (play announcement and collect digits) or ‘4’ (flex parameter block), it passes the content to the intelligent peripheral through ISDN or Q.931. When the intelligent peripheral, e.g. an IVR, starts the specified function, it establishes a voice channel to the user through the SSP. Because the SSP controls the voice channel, it can provide such services as call transfer after the IVR transaction is finished.
Those of skill in the art will appreciate that the referenced ITU and related standards are well known, evolving standards. Accordingly, reference herein to these standards will be understood to mean the standards as they existed at the time of the earliest effective filing date of the present application, and as they have evolved to date, and as they continue to evolve over the term of any patent that issues herefrom. Applicants note that an instructive earlier version of the ITU H.450.1 standard is described in Generic functional protocol for the support of supplementary services in H.323, date unknown; that the GR-1129-CORE standard is described in AINGR: Switch—Intelligent Peripheral Interface (IPI), Revision 1, October, 1998 and AINGR: Switch—Service Control Point (SCP)/Adjunct Interface, September 1997; that the ITU-T H.225.0, ITU-T H.450.2 and ITU-T Q.931 standards are described in Call Signaling Protocols and Media Stream Packetization for Packet Based Multimedia Communications Systems, February 1998, Call Transfer Supplementary Service for H.323I, September 1997 and ISDN User-Network Interface Layer 3 Specification for Basic Call Control, March 1993, respectively.
No intelligent peripheral interface has been proposed heretofore that is compatible with the ITU-T H.323 or related H.225, H.245, H.450 and Q.931 standards, and the GR-1129-CORE standard.